Artificial Intelligence and Cannabis
What is artificial intelligence and why is this technology going to be so important in the cannabis sector — globally?
Most people on the planet these days have heard about the legalization of cannabis. The movement to legalize and normalize the plant and the products that are now produced downstream has revolutionized if not captured the attention of the world over the last decade.
What they know about cannabis however, is all over the map.
Even if they understand the complicated biology of the plant, and very few people still do, they do not really understand the medical marvels of cannabinoids, simply because there have not been enough trials, nor enough education.
Here is the first reality. The endocannabinoid system appears to be the 12th system of the human body (the others are the integumentary, the skeletal, the muscular, the lymphatic, the respiratory, the digestive, the nervous, the endocrine, the cardiovascular, the urinary and reproductive systems). In fact, stimulation of the endocannabinoid system appears to make the other systems work “better,” particularly if there is dysregulation of any of the other systems.
The second is that particularly THC has been demonized if not miscategorized by major medical and legal systems for at least the last 100 years. Other cannabinoids like CBD, as well as plant extracts and essential oils (like terpenoids and flavonoids) are still mostly a mystery to the Cannacurious, even in places like California, where medical marijuana has been “legal” on a state level since 1996 — an entire generation at this point.
What this means from a business perspective is that individual companies are left up to “brand” or educate consumers in a more and more digital marketplace, where verity and truth are in short supply. It also means that consumers are left to find their way through an increasingly bewildering array of choices.
And that is where artificial intelligence comes into play.
What is artificial intelligence?
Most people on the planet, particularly thanks to sci-fi that popularized scientific advances that have been underway since the advent of computing, have heard of AI. Most also of course do not really understand it. Here is the easy explanation. Artificial intelligence is essentially the ability to teach machines how to “learn” from results and data fed to them by an input system and interpret it much more easily, or act upon the same.
Computers can, in some ways, “learn” faster than human beings. Data can be processed and interpreted electronically in a way that is far faster than the human brain can process incoming information in real time. This does not mean that machines are “smarter” than people. It just means that AI can find trends, and segment critical information more quickly that can then be interpreted and used more efficiently by human brains.
When it comes to a plant like cannabis as well as the products that are made to it, this means that an AI system trained by the medical data that is available on cannabis, and called up, by people, is a technology that is uniquely positioned to interpret scientific and sales data for at least customers in a live market that is big and growing. Beyond this, there are other uses for this this kind of data which include medical use, as well as trends in a market which is still highly diffuse and fragmented.
What is Hello Mary?
Hello Mary is a new AI platform now going to live test and rollout in the United States, that is designed to do the following things:
Help customers, via a voice assistant, find the right cannabis products, in dispensaries near them. If a customer has a somatic complaint (for example, I have a headache), the system can search to find products that are designed to address this kind of health concern, and direct consumers to the nearest participatory dispensary which carries such products.
Beyond health issues, however, there are other ways Hello Mary can help consumers. If an adult user wants to feel a certain way when they listen to a certain kind of music (for example) a tool like Hello Mary can also help them search for a cannabis product to help them feel that way.
Where Is The Project?
The team is hard at work at finding American state dispensaries to partner with, with a focus initially on California.
We are beginning our communication strategy and social media campaign, and we hope you stay tuned. There are European fits to the same. We are a global team. And we are bringing the cutting edge of cannatech to a market near you if not a social media stream.
